The License Service in vSphere 6.0

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In vSphere 6.0, the License Service is part of the Platform Services Controller and delivers centralized license management and reporting functionality to vSphere and to products that integrate with vSphere.

You can use the License Service with newly installed vSphere 6.0 environments, or environments that are upgraded from vSphere 5.x to vSphere 6.0 . For details about upgrading the license management in vCenter Server 5.x to the License Service in vSphere 6.0, see the vSphere Upgrade guide.

The License Service provides an inventory of licenses in the vSphere environment, and manages the license assignments for ESXi hosts, vCenter Server systems, and clusters with enabled Virtual SAN. The License Service also manages the license assignments for products that integrate with vSphere, such as vRealize Operations Manager, VMware Site Recovery Manager, and so on.

If your vSphere environment has several Platform Services Controllers that are joined through one vCenter Single Sign-on domain, the licensing inventory is replicated across all Platform Services Controllers . This way, the licensing data for each asset and all available licenses are replicated across all of the Platform Services Controllers, and each individual Platform Services Controller contains a copy of that data and licenses for all of the Platform Services Controllers.

For example, suppose that your environment consists of two Platform Services Controllers that are connected to four vCenter Server systems each, and every vCenter Server system has 10 hosts connected to it. The License Service stores information about the license assignments and usage for all eight vCenter Server systems, and the 80 hosts that are connected to those systems. The License Service also lets you manage the licensing for all eight vCenter Server systems and the 80 hosts that are connected to them through the vSphere Web Client.